


Just One Other

by Selcier



Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: Hartwin, M/M, Sort-of, bit of a mission fic, mentions of past abuse (non-graphic), soul mates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-15
Updated: 2018-01-15
Packaged: 2019-03-05 01:06:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13376874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Selcier/pseuds/Selcier
Summary: Eggsy agrees to play the role of bait in order to ensnare a kidnapping ring up to the highest echelon. Harry has some misgivings, of course, as he hardly relishes sending his Knights into the field purposely compromised. But when Eggsy is stripped down and tied to a chair, Harry is faced with the brilliant beauty of a Soul Mark spread across Eggsy’s back. One he never knew existed.A Pseudo Soul-Mate Story.





	Just One Other

 

*****

 

_There’s a new case in the Sunday paper. His Aunt Violet calls him at 10:00 to discuss the sordid details. After his mother died, he’d become the new favorite relative and he can only let so many calls go to voicemail before she catches on and visits in person._

_He takes the call to the back garden, behind his townhouse, where the flowers bloom wide in the new spring sun, and settles in on a padded bench to weather the deluge of gossip._

_“-and I heard,” she was saying, “that the girl’s mother wouldn’t let her out of the house until her eleventh birthday. Thought she was going to be snatched up, the poor woman. Can you imagine having a dear little girl with such a horrible fate!”_

_Harry hums at the comment, staunchly refusing to escalate the conversation. He’d never been particularly interested in the public’s general obsessions with the scarce Marked persons. Paraded about like celebrities, and generally with little other charms to recommend them, they were on the covers of magazines and hounded by the paparazzi. And even though he didn’t voice his thoughts, he secretly agreed with keeping the Mark within the family. What business did the world have in personal matters of the heart?_

_He smiles across the small garden at the sight of a brilliant orange butterfly landing on one of his more colorful bushes. “You don’t say,” he says into his phone, “That’s all terribly interesting.”_

_“And, of course, now suitors are coming out of the paneling! There have been quite a few exemplary dowries offered already. It seems like the young lady will have her pick of the best of the best! It’s so heartwarming to see them find their one perfect love. Can you imagine such a life?”_

_Harry hums again, watching the butterfly flit from flower to flower. “Yes, quite wonderful, Aunt Violet.”_

 

*****

 

“My god!”

The exclamation slips out in the most rude way, with a slight gasp and through a choked groan. There should have been no need for such and exclamation. Certainly not while leaning over Merlin’s shoulder while reviewing mission footage. And certainly not about his own protege.

No, it was very rude. But there it was, dangling out in the open: a utterance of ignorance and wonder. Spread out across the room just like the wide span of monitors and modems. Merlin, every the pragmatist, ignores him completely and continues on with his instructions into Eggsy’s ear.

“When did that appear?” Harry says, staring at the screen and clearing this throat. He re-crosses his legs. But his words still sound scratched and half-bitten off.

Merlin doesn’t even spare him a glance over his shoulder. His fingers continue on skittering across the keyboard. “I believe that if you had even taken one moment to review the processing files for the last Lancelot position, you would have been apprised of the situation.”

And of course Merlin knows that Harry had done no such thing. Why would he have wanted to review the files of a steaming pile of money and haughty superiority he was certain to fill those pages?

He scoffs. “So its been there for some time, I take it?”

“One would think that you would know more about the situation than dear ‘ole me,” Merlin says. He taps the red button to engage the microphone. “Good work, Galahad,” he says with his lips hovering over the textured bulb. “Await further instructions for extraction after facial recognition secures a match.”

Harry’s eyes flick back to the giant screens eclipsing the small work space. There are few views painting a picture of Galahad’s mission in hues of Kingsman glasses’ footage, the grainy feed of tapped security cameras and marked locations on computer projected blueprints. Eggsy’s position flickers in the second level basement by way of a green dot and his glasses see little more than the dirty wall of the confining room and the last view of a closing door as his captors leave the area. The security feed reflects his nod of understanding.

Through the tapped feed, he hunches lower in his chair, enough to pull his restrains taut. He’d been alternating between calling out for help and mercy and sobbing for the past few hours while his captors had been present in a good show of forced panic. But despite knowing it was an act, Harry infinitely prefers Eggsy’s usual dry cheeks and steady breath. Every utterance of discomfort and pain twists his veins into a tangled knot.

Eggsy had performed his given task beautifully as per usual. After months of backlogged reports and incidental sightings, Intelligence had finally pulled a possible location out of heaps of data. For a trafficking ring, there were a surprising lack of humans involved. They seemed to strike rarely and without pattern. Victims were more often than not listed as runaways by law enforcement and their cases eventually closed. No one had anticipated their net across such a wide physical and socio-economic playing field. They’d been immensely difficult to nail down.

But now all that was left was to provide physical evidence of certain individuals’ involvement. And what better way than to literally catch them in the act? And that had meant signing a directive for Eggsy to present himself as the perfect target for abduction; watching Eggsy tossed into a dark alley like some cheap fuck and seeing him stripped bare and tied up with little care to his person. Harry had pushed the document from him the instant his ink dried across the signature line; disgusted with the circumstances.

He focuses on the screen again the proof of a nightmare given form:

The grainy and magnificent image through the security feed of a brilliant tattoo spanning Eggsy’s back. A butterfly, painted in shades of graying green, so large that it skirted over the jut of his hips and up over the swell of his shoulders. An lurid impression of Eggsy’s soul given form on his skin. A mark that designates his proclivity for only one other person. His innate and admirable trait of being loyal only to one. A soul mark for all the world to see.

And Harry has never seen something so wondrous.

“And before you ask,” Merlin says, turning around in his chair and forcing Harry to take a step backward, “No I was not withholding this information from you.”

Harry scoffs, his eyes still set on the screen as he soaks in the details. The sweep of the fore-wing. The tantalizing tease of luscious color.  The gracious gradient over Eggsy’s muscled shoulders and the thick contrast of the hard black outline of the thorax against the small of his back.

“What color is it?” Harry can’t help but say, the words another step in a descent to abandon all manners. “What color?”

Merlin frowns at him. “I imagine you’ll see for yourself,” he says. “When Galahad completes his mission. He is currently on a mission, Arthur, may I remind you. One that requires concentration and skill and the ability to work without being interrupted.” He stands at the last few words to crowd Harry’s space.

Harry manages to tear his eyes away from Eggsy’s back to address the accusation. “I was hardly interrupting.” He sounds a bit petulant so he straightens his shoulders with a roll and adjusts his glasses.

Merlin raises an eyebrow and points over to the adjacent wall toward the door. “I believe that you’ll find a few mission reports on your desk that need addressing,” he says.

And because the request is only thinly veiled as a threat, Harry clears his throat again and with one quick glance to the screen, nods. “Yes,” he says. “Of course. Please keep me apprised of any consequential updates to Galahad’s objective.”

“Of course,” Merlin says but Harry knows he’ll do no such thing.

 

******

 

_“When you become Kingsman, your record will be completely deleted. There will be little left in the national system to mark you as nothing more than a highly uninteresting citizen. You’ll have an average job with an average salary and spend your night watching variety shows and occasionally patronizing chain restaurants.”_

_Eggsy snorts, settling back in the chair with his second drink of the night. “Sounds good to me, bruv. Never wanted to be much more than someone good for Daisy. Make enough money to send her to a good school if she wants. Guess I can handle a bit of telly watching for that.”_

_Harry raises his glass in a light toast, content in the dim glow of the room and his company. “Of course, your actual life will be nothing of the sort, mind you.”_

_Smiling, Eggsy sips at his drink. He’d thrown the last one back in all of two gulps but seemed to be enjoying the melancholy burn of his second. “Yeah, looking forward to being me for me, yeah? Getting out of the flat. And getting on with it.” He tips his head back, the brim of his cap falling back. “Just being me, finally.”_

_“Well, I for one and quite excited at the prospect of getting to know that young man.”_

_Eggsy’s gaze settles back on Harry’s face and he softens, a low tug of his lips that relaxes the muscles in his shoulders. “Yeah?” He says sounding surprised. “Aces, Harry.”_

 

******

 

He’s leaves the operations room with no other excuses and hurries back to his office as quickly as can seem dignified. And as soon as the thick mahogany door shuts him inside and he’s seated at the desk with a deep pour of Scotch. He slouches back into his chair with a frown.

He couldn’t - He’d never have expected. “A Mark,” he says, wondering out loud. “A bloody soul mark.”

He stares through the trellised window into the clear night. A few gas lanterns doting the walkways around the mansion illuminate the extensive garden and winding paths.But mostly, the light form inside his office reflect against glass and he can only see his own expression staring dully back at him.

Sagging jawline and drooping eyes stare back at him. He looks away.

A rush of shameful heat spreads across his face and the lingering pain of embarrassment flares in his joints. He’d been chasing after a date with a boy who would only ever love one other person.

Harry squeezes his eyes shut; ashamed that he could have ever thought that he could have-

He taps his fingers on the leather writing mat on his desk. The grandfather clock clicks in the corner and the ice in his glass cracks and snaps as it melts. He crosses his legs and straightens his pen arrangement.

By the time he raises his glass to his lips again, the ice is gone and the alcohol diluted by water. A ring of condensation mars the top of his pristine desk. He sets the glass down with a frown.

“Arthur,” Merlin says over his glasses, breaking the anxious hum of the room. “Its done. We have facial recognition on all parties. MI6 has been briefed for infiltration and extraction. Local law enforcement is waiting on duty.”

Harry clears his throat. “Yes, thank you Merlin.” He pauses, a vice around his chest. “Who is scheduled to collect Galahad before he’s questioned?”

“Lancelot, sir.”

Instead of nodding, Harry makes a noise of agreement. “Good. That will be all, I believe.”

The line doesn’t go blank immediately and Harry can almost hear Merlin’s soft inhale before he speaks. “Would you like confirmation of Eg- of Galahad’s admission to HQ?”

Licking his lips before answering, Harry spins the glass on his desk. “No, thank you. Please only update me if things go tits up. Arthur out.”

He stands up before he pauses and drowns his glass in one large and unsightly gulp. He touches his glasses to let his driver know to expect him at the shop. And on the way back to London on the bullet train, he keeps his gaze firmly planted on the empty chair opposite his.

His house is dark and his bed cold that night.

And in the morning he forces himself into the shower and into his suit. The previous night swirls in his mind like some sort of drugged kidnapping. It almost feels like it never happened; he can’t reconcile his experience with his expectations of reality. He rubs his temples under his glasses and counts in Korean down from twenty as he watches the teapot start to steam.

On the way into the mansion he pulls out his phone and sends Merlin an accusing message over his glasses that holds no real heat. _He’d be worth more. Make them sloppy looking for the highest possible bidder._

Merlin responds with an infuriating _Yes_.

 

******

 

_He brushes a few cracked leaves out of Eggsy’s hair when they finally slide to a stop around the corner from their hotel. Eggsy is grinning: his face split open with mirth and a flush; laughing at Harry’s deep, strained breaths of the cool autumn air._

_“A bit out of shape there, Arthur?” He says in his most infuriating posh accent._

_Harry feels his lips twitch even if he chooses to tug on his dinner jacket instead of responding. Eggsy had somehow managed to loose his own in the shuffle and resulting dash from the Ballroom._

_Eggsy nudges him. “Safe, yeah bruv?”_

_“Of course, dear Galahad. But you’ll look a sight going back to your room looking so disheveled.” Abandoning his fretting over his own jacket, he reaches up to adjust Eggsy’s tie, fixing the tightness of the knot and straightening his collar. “You look like you’ve been up to no good.”_

_Winking, Eggsy shrugs. “Haven't I?”_

_He turns and Harry spys a flash of color underneath Eggsy’s rumpled and ripped dress shirt. Harry catches his elbow in a light grip. “Are you bleeding?”_

_Eggsy doesn’t turn back to look at him. He stiffens ups, the line of his shoulders tensing the the side of his jaw clenching. He pulls his arm away from Harry’s hand. “It’s nothing, Harry. I’ll take care of it. Go back to get some rest, yeah? It wouldn’t look good if we went in together.” He steps around the corner and out of sight before Harry can insist._

_Clearing his throat, Harry waits for a few minutes in the crisp air as a few Czech walk by. Some offer him a cigarette and directions if he needs them. He declines their offers politely and doesn’t ask Eggsy about the cut the next morning on the jet back to England._

 

******

 

Eggsy is sitting up on the hospital bed with his bare legs dangling over the edge when Harry sees him in the mid-afternoon the next day. Despite the stocky set of his shoulders and the thickness of his arms, he’s almost completely swamped in the loose hospital gown. There’s a dark bruise peeking over the edge of his collar but his face is un-scarred and his hands un-bandaged.

Harry sighs when he sees him and they meet eyes over the smell of disinfectant.

“Arthur,” Eggsy says, his voice full of gravel from lack of sleep.

“Galahad,” Harry says.

Eggsy glances at the rumbled, thin coverlet next to him on the bed and then gestures to the chair by nearby instead. “Wanna sit down?”

Harry takes a seat as an excuse to fold his hands in his lap. He leans against one arm of the chair and stares at Eggsy’s toes.

“My eyes are up here, bruv,” Eggsy says, wiggling his toes and spreading them wide.

Harry switches his eyes to Eggsy’s face quickly enough to incite a light laugh from the younger man and Eggsy grins down at him from his higher perch on the bed.

Harry clears his throat to swallow down his embarrassment at Eggsy’s teasing. “I’m very glad to see you in one piece,” he says. But his heart loosens with the familiar scene.

Eggsy shrugs. “Knew what I was getting into. No one was gonna take fucking Percival from some dark alley now was they?”

“Lancelot could have-”

Eggsy face darkens and Harry knows they’re both avoiding the real issue. “They’d have her packed up and sent out as fast as they could get up a shipper. How was she gonna get someone high up to look in her mouth and fucking tug at her dick?”

Harry cringes at the harsh language despite his own congruent thoughts on the matter.

But Eggsy continues, gesturing wildly with his hands. “Merlin already knew, you get me? He asked and I said I’d do it. Ain’t nothing new for me, guv. Dean had all sorts come to look at me when he found out. And when I joined the Force he thought he’d lost his weekly paycheck so he had my mum call me back. Fuck and it worked too.” His face flushes red and he looks away from Harry at the door. “I was fucking losing it in that holding cell before you showed up thinking I was going away for months. They ain’t got no protections for people like me. Not on the streets and certainly not in the nick.”

Eggsy curls his hands into fists in his lap and his anger rushes out with a deep sigh. “I ain’t worth more than them other kids getting grabbed. But I can do something about it. You get me, bruv?”

 

******

 

_“Harry,” he says, his voice breaking through the muffled quiet of the snow-laden park, “Before...when we was drinking after the train trial, you said I’d be just a normal bloke once I joined Kingsman.”_

_Their elbows bump against each other as they walk, their paths brushing together in the cold. “Of course. Merlin’s team takes care of the details. You are, officially, at least, not more interesting than I am.”_

_Eggsy purposely elbows him and laughs. “Please, Harry. You couldn’t be normal if you grew up in Hackney. With that fucking posh accent you got.”_

_Harry hums in contemplation, “Well, perhaps you are correct. But on paper I’m quiet average. I work at a Tailor - as the Director of Customer Service I’ll have you know - and keep a well maintained single family home in good market condition. According to my credit card, I prefer to shop at Tesco and have never spent more than a hundred quid on a new pair of shoes.”_

_“That’s pretty sad, bruv,” Eggsy says, kicking  what must have a pitiful attempt at a snowman as they move across the lawn. “But it sounds brilliant to me. Nobody fucking looking into me all the time. Not getting cross examined and shit if I’m having a smoke outside Spencer’s.”_

_He stops walking and takes a moment to stare up at the thick flakes falling from the overcast sky and Harry turns back to watch him. “Nobody grabbing at me like I’m some county fair prize.”_

_Harry reaches out for Eggsy and squeezes his fingers. His hands are cold under the thin liner of his cotton gloves. Harry rubs his thumb across the meat of Eggsy palms and coaxes him closer. “Eggsy,” he says his voice wavering in his hesitance._

_Eggsy steps closer to him but pulls his hand away. “It's nothing, Harry,” he says._

 

*****

 

The nurse interprets whatever Harry might have said. The man knocks twice before entering with a polite smile and caddy of instruments. “Sorry, sirs. But Galahad here is due for his check-in. I’ll only be a few minutes.”

Harry purses his lips but sits back in his chair.

“Yeah, sure, Thomas,” Eggsy says. He doesn't even glance towards the door.

Thomas doesn’t speak as he works and Harry finds himself watching Eggsy’s face over his shoulder. He looks tired, of course; his eyes lined with red and glazed from being awake too long. His usual rosy glow has drained from his cheeks leaving them a stark white against the light blue of his gown. His lips are cracked and split from more than just a lack of water. His glasses are gone but the indents of where they’d been smashed into his face remain, dark and bruised, against the ridge of his nose.

His eyes meet Harry’s with the same ferocity and righteous anger as they had when they first met outside Holborn Station.

Harry barely notices when Thomas closes the door with a sharp snap of the bolt. Very poor form for a spy.

“Its you, Harry.”

His body moves to startle; his legs and back cramping with the overwhelming urge to tense and jerk. He swallows down his instincts and re-folds his hands in his lap instead. He wishes for his Rainmaker if only to wrap his fingers around the smooth curve of the handle.

“You must be mistaken, my dear boy. Such a thing couldn’t be possible.”

Eggsy’s eyes narrow to slits as his lips curl up in a hateful grimace. “Fuck you. You think I don’t know my own heart.”

His expression and the subsequent vitriol send Harry back to that terrible afternoon before his mission to Kentucky. And for a hot second of pain, his head throbs with fear and confusion and he sways in his seat.

Harry braces his hands on the arms of the chair to steady his words. “No, Eggsy. I apologize. I would not think to take away your agency.”

“Well then get your fucking head out of your arse and listen to what I’m saying!” Eggsy leans forward and almost tumbles off the bed in his haste to stand.

Harry meets him halfway, grabbing at his arms to steady his body and guide him back to the mattress. He sits on the edge, as close as he dares.

“Fuck,” Eggsy groans, clutching at his head and settling back against the pillows. “Fuck.”

“You’ve been awake for almost seventy hours and have been interrogated twice, Eggsy. This really isn’t the best moment to-”

“Shut up, Harry,” Eggsy says, closing his eyes and letting his his head drop back against the headboard. “For fuck’s sake, just shut up and listen.” The anger seems to have melted out of him and his hands slide in between the warm fabric of Harry’s suit jacket and his pressed shirt.

Harry runs one of his thumbs across the sharp line of Eggsy’s eyebrow to smooth the tensions lines etched on his forehead. “I’m listening. I swear.”

Eggsy cracks one of his eyes open. “Good,” he says and licks his his lips. “‘Cause I’m only going to say all this once. I’ve spend a lifetime with this thing on me. Dictating what I do and who I see and all the shit people want to get out of me. At first I thought you was just too polite, too much of a gentleman, to mention it. But you didn’t know it was there, yeah? You talked to me for me. Not because I’m some fantasy fuck toy.”

Harry opens his mouth to interrupt, to claim that no one could ever think such a thing about another human being, but Eggsy shushes him before straightening up and opening both of his eyes fully. “I can’t explain it. But I know what I know. I ain’t looking for no dowry or a fancy house to live in. I’ve made my own life, thanks, and I don’t want another one stuck up in a manor in the countryside or on the top floor of some skyscraper in Bali. Those poor kids didn’t want that either, probably. But I know what I want.”

He pauses, his face flushed and red. “It's easy for me, yeah? This is it for me, Harry. But I know it ain’t like that for you.”

Harry sighs but he pulls Eggsy’s hands into his own. He rubs his thumbs over the callouses from too many late nights in the shoot range and kneads at the meaty rise of his scared palm scattered with scratches from rough concrete. A dusting of white ridges betrays previous split knuckles and the remnants of alleyway brawls.

Eggsy watches in silence as Harry raises those knuckles to his lips for a light kiss.

“Its you, Harry,” he says again and his voice wobbles, his bravado pushed to the side. “There’ll never be nobody else. You get me?”

“I do, Eggsy,” Harry says, his voice catching. “I do.”

“Than stop trying to take the high road, you tosser, and just fucking say yes. I don’t want to hear about how ancient you are or that you’re my boss or any of the other bullshit you’ve been telling yourself.”

Harry raises Eggsy’s knuckles to lips again; his touch lingering and warm. He kisses the younger man’s fingers and the back of his hand. Then his palm and his wrist. He leans forward to reach the crook of Eggsy’s elbow and the thick bulge of Eggsy's bicep with an open mouth. He closes his eyes in a tight squeeze as if to keep this vision from slipping away.

“Harry,” Eggsy says in more than a moan than a name. “Please just fucking say it.”

“Yes,” Harry says as his lips linger on the soft underside of Eggsy’s forearm where his skin is paler and crisscrossed with veins. “A thousand times yes, my dear boy. I’ve never been one for morals.”

Eggsy snorts but he’s tugging his hand from Harry’s grip and pulling on his lapels instead. “Just manners, yeah?”

Harry leans forward, his upper body twisting so he can bury his nose in the dip by Eggsy’s collarbone. He wraps his hands around Eggsy’s broad back underneath the open hang of his hospital gown. The skin under his palms feels smooth with no hint of the colorful mark below. And Harry sighs his contentment into Eggsy’s neck.

“Just you, my dear Eggsy. Sod everything else.”

 

*****

 

_Harry hums again, watching the butterfly flit from flower to flower. “Yes, quite wonderful, Aunt Violet.”_

_She clicks her tongue over the phone, “Harry, dear. You’ve been most unsociable lately. I’ve hardly heard two words from you outside of your yearly card. And you even missed dear Margret’s first luncheon last month. Are you feeling alright? This isn’t like you. We’re all very worried.”_

_He can’t suppress the foolish smile that slides across his face and is immensely thankful that his Aunt can’t see him. “I’m quite fine, I assure you. I apologize that I’ve been away” He pauses, giving himself the courage for his next words. “It's just that….well, I’ve been seeing someone.”_

_She gasps in a shriek-like squeal so loudly that he has to jerk his phone away from his ear. “Oh Harry dear! I’m ever so happy for you! Margaret will be so glad to hear the news. What’s his name? Have you been seeing him long? Oh! And how did you two meet? I hope that we’ll be able to see him at the House this summer. You will bring him along of course. Timothy and Claire will want to congratulate you as well.”_

_He cuts off her plans with a pointed “Aunt Violet, please. It's still rather casual at this point.”_

_But she isn’t deterred and continues to scheme and make plans for a hunting party and trips to the lodge in the fall._

_He lets her go, content to focus back on the butterfly on his gardenia bush. He smiles, more to himself again, and thinks of his own schemes. How lovely it would be to have Eggsy sitting next to him with a magazine or a even a disassembled pistol. How his hair would gleam in the sun and his hands would look curled around a sweating glass of water._

_“But are you happy, Harry dear?” His Aunt says between once plan and the next. “Does he make you happy?”_

_The butterfly alights from one delicate white flower and flutters up far enough into the sky that Harry loses sight of it in the bright sunlight. “Yes, he does,” he says more to himself than his_ _Aunt. “He really does.”_

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading my first Kingsman submission for the Flash Bang 2017! The art was done by the amazing ItsDawnforyou (at Tumblr and Deviantart). Thank you so much for the wonderful piece to accompany my fic. :) :)
> 
> As with all my fics, please feel free to leave comments and constructive criticism. This was difficult for me to write as I am polyamorous and find the idea of a soul mate to be somewhat odd. ;)
> 
> You can find me at https://eggselcier.tumblr.com/ for Kingsman related bits and at https://selcier.tumblr.com/ for my main account (mostly Star Wars related).


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